Gels and Jellies as a Dosage Form for Dysphagia Patients: A Review

Patient compliance and safety is now prominent on the agenda of healthcare companies. Dysphagia (swallowing dysfunction) is common in general populations and more common in elderly institutionalized patients and persons in long-term care facilities due to significant primary illnesses, including cerebrovascular accidents, neurodegenerative disorders, head and neck cancer, or head injury. To ensure safety during oral medication administration, patients with dysphagia require an appropriate oral dosage form or modification of the dosage form. However inappropriate drug administration in patients with dysphagia (i.e., the crushing of sustained-release or enteric-coated tablets or the administration of oral medications with water) is undesirable and may be associated with adverse events (e.g. choking episodes, adverse drug reactions resulting from the immediate release of drug from a sustained-release product, refusal to take medications). Hence, there is a need of alternative novel oral dosage form like gels and jellies to deliver drugs having a viscosity that can be easily swallowed without any discomfort to the patient preventing choking and suffocation. Hence, today the potential for such dosage form is promising because of patient compliance and improved quality of life. This review briefly describes the role of gels and jellies in dysphagia patients, its advantages and disadvantages, formulation considerations, evaluation parameters and reviews of gels and jellies for dysphagia patients which have been carried out.